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Ten Years in South America 



BY 

J. M. POLK 

AUSTIN, TEXAS 

A. D. 1907 



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MEMOmES OF THE LOST CHOSE 






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Ten Years in Sou th America \ 





BY 

J. M. POLK 

AUSTIN, TEXAS 

A. D. 1907 


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Copyright app'd for 1907, 

by 

J- M. POLK. 

Austin, Texas. 



SAM T. HILL, Printer. 909 Con 



gress Avenue, 



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MEMORIES OF THE LOST CAUSE. 



8T0RIES AND ADVB^NTURES OF A CONFEDERATE 
- SOLDIER OF HOOD'S TEXAS BRIGADE, 
GENERAL LEE'S A^Y. 



Since the close of the war between the States, from 1861 to 
1S65, I have noticed and read with a great deal of interest 
letters and articles in books and newspapers about the cause and 
I I'sults of that long and bloody struggle. As I took part in the 
lontliet, I have thought for a long time that I would answer 
sojiie of those letters, as I might be able to give some account of 
h-iends and relatives lost and almost forgotten. But it has been 
so long that many of the incidents are almost like a dream to 
me now. I am not Avell enough versed in the art of literature 
to write a book or for a newspaper. I have heard it thunder 
too often, have lost the use of my right arm, and I am generally 
out of fix. Then, I never professed to know much, for I was a 
private most of the time in a regiment of infantry and had no 
opportunity of knowing anything except what happened near 
me. 

1 was born in Green county, Missouri, five miles east of Spring- 
field, in the year 1838. My father was a native of Maury county, 
Tennessee. I enlisted in the (Confederate army in July, 1861, in 
Captain Winkler's company, at Corsicana, Texas. From there T 
went to Virginia, and was attached to the Fourth Texas Infantry, 
Hood's Brigade, General Lee's army. My first introduction on 
a battlefield was at Seven Pines. This satisfied me that war was 
not what it had been pictiu'ed in books and newspapers, and that 
if we accomplished what we started out to do, it would be a dearly 
bought victory: but T supposed I would stay as long as any of 
them — I never was of a boasting disposition. It reminded me, of a 
conversation I had with General Sam Houston before leaving 
Texas. The three Texas i-egiments had lost so many men by sick- 
ness and exposure that it was necessary to send back to Texas 
for recruits, and Captain Winkler and myself were on the way to 
Vii'ginia with recruits foi- our company. It was in the month of 
April, 1862, when I met Cienerai ITon-^ton in the barber shop of 
the Fanning House in Ilonston. He looked at me a few min- 
utes and said : "Well, young man. I suppose you are off for the 



\v;ir. ■' "Yes. sir." He was on crutches, dressed in a long, loose 
sack coat, broad-brimmed hat. and had the largest ring I ever saw 
on a man's finger. "Well, I am too old now to be of any service 
to my country, ' ' he continued. ' ' Texas people refuse to take my 
counsel : I can do them no good, and God knows I do not Avish to 
do them any hai-m. I do not think our cause will justify the loss 
of so ranch life and property, but still if I were able and they 
refused to go my way. T would go with them." He made some 
sarcastic remarks about Louis T. Wigfall. which I do not remem- 
ber. After the battle of Seven Pines, our next move (that is, 
Whiting's division) was to join General Jackson in the valley of 
Virginia. We met him near Staunton, Va. We were all ignorant 
then about discipline in the army and thought we had a I'ight to 
know as much as the officers. But we soon found out different, 
(leneral Whiting was an old army officer, and a good one, and he 
said to General ITood that he had no doubt but what those Texas 
men would make good soldiers, "but you will have a hard time 
to get them down to army regulations." General Jackson was a 
good hand to execute and keep his own counsel, and about the 
first thing he done was to give us to understand that we must 
knoA\^ rmthing but obey oi-dcrs, and if any citizen on the march 
!-hou1d ask us where we are going, "tell them y'>u don't know." 
The next dav he came along' and noticed (me of our men leaving 
I'anks for a chei'ry tree. (Mierries were getting ripe. "Where are 
you going?" asked the general. "T don't know, sir." "What 
regiment do you belong to?" "I don't know, sir." "What do 
you knoAv?" "1 know (jeneral Jackson said we must not know 
anything till after the fight's over." "Is that all you know?" 
"I know I want to go to that cherry tree." "AA^ell, go on." 
The next day he came along, and one of our men says to him: 
"General, where are we going?" He turned around and looked 
at him a few minutes and said: "Are you a good hand to keep a 
secret ? " " Yes, sir. " " Well, so am I, ' ' and he rode on. Then it 
was a forced march to the rear of McClellan's army, which we 
reached about the 25th of June, and on the 27th of June, 1862, 
was fought the memorable battle of Gaines' Mill and the Seven 
Days' battle near Richmond. The whole coun+ry knows the re- 
sult. At Gaines' Mill our regiment, the Fourth Texas, lost its 
colonel and lieutenant colonel, and the major was wounded 
which left us without a field officer. It was reported that we had 
lost about three hundred killed and w^ounded. I was one of the 
wounded, but unless a man was killed on the field or lost a leg or 
an arm., it was oTily considered a furlough, so I got a furlough, 
and I missed the second battle "of ]\Tanassas by about three davs 



-5— 



and I never did regret it. I was wounded in the arm/ and it 
swelled to about the size of a stove pipe, turned as black as a pot, 
and the doctors thought for a while that it would have to be 
amputated. All the other regiments of the brigade and division 
lost heavily, but not so much as the Fourth Texas, because it 
seemed to me that we were right in front of the Federal batteries, 
supported by infantry. It was reported that our company lost 
twenty-nine killed and wounded, but I can not remember all 
their names. The first man killed in Winkler's company was 
named Fondron, and his people lived in Young county. Texas, 
I was within five feet of him ; he dropped his gun and said, "Oh. 
Lord!" and fell within about fifty steps of the battery. The 
first man killed in the regiment was Jim Smyley, from Robert- 
son county, Texas. We were then about twelve or fourteen hun- 
dred yards from the battery. He was struck by a shell. About 
that time General Hood gave the command, "Forward, guide 
center, march, give way to the right, give way to the left ; watch 
your colors, men!" Now, that is the last command you hear in 
going into a hard-fought battle. Then it is every fellow for him- 
self and the devil for all, and the man with the musket does the 
balance. We carried the position, but with heavy loss. Captain 
Hutchison, from Navasota, was killed on the field. Captain Ryan 
from Waco, Captain Porter from Huntsville, and Bob Lambert, 
from Austin, all died in the same room in Richmond, and I sup- 
pose I am one of the last men that saw them alive, Riclmiond 
was crowded with wounded men. I went down to the Chimberazo 
Hospital and found Jim Treadwell. Mat Beasley and, I think, 
Jim Shaw, all wounded. I secured a carriage and took them to 
the Catholic Hispital, where they received better attention, and 
all recovered. Jim Treadwell was a great oddity. He was shot 
in the instep of the foot; he said in all seriousness that he had 
just put on a new pair of shoes that day and that the shot ruined 
the shoe. When Captain Winkler was entei-ing his name on the 
muster roll, he asked Jim his native State. Jim said he was bom 
in Cowita county, Ga., but that he stopped thirty-six years in 
Texas to fatten his horse, went to California in '49 and was a 
ranger on the frontier of Texas for several years. T was informed 
that Dick Wade was badly wounded, but I could not learn where 
he was. I put in two days in search of him, and finally found 
him in a box car in Manchester, opposite Richmond, from which 
f)lace I took him to the Catholic Hospital. Dick is now living 
at Wootan Wells, Falls county, Texas; Mat Beasley, in Navarro 
county, Texas, and Jim Treadwell died in East Texas nine or ten 
years^igo. I do not know what became of Jim Shaw ; it has been 



i 



— 6- 



so lono- T have almost forj^otten him. 

About the 1st of September, 1862. as well as I can remember. 
Jim Aston of Winkler's company and myself started out from 
Richmond to overtake the army. When we reached Rapidan 
station, as far as we eonld sro on the railroad, we heard that therQ 
liad l)een another fi^ht at Manassas. The next day we started out 
on foot. We soon be^an to meet the sick, barefooted and wounded 
1h;it could walk, and prisoners, some of the latter negroes. When 
U( leaclied Warrenton I foinid Tom Morris and Bill Spenee of 
;>uf c()nii)any in the hospital, both mortally wounded. I gave 
them .$10. all the money I had, and left them and never saw them 
;i<;ain. Their people lived in Navarro Cvounty, Texas. Wq 
traveled to Leesburo". then to Point of Rocks, on the Potomac. 
t\\cl\e miles. 1 think, and crossed it between midnight and day. 
The river was <mly about waist deep, and we had no trouble in 
reaching the other side. We had had 7iothing to eat for nearly 
tvro days, and we held a little consultation, as we were then \i\ 
the State of Maryland and did not know how the people would 
treat us. W^e concluded to try some of the citizens for breakfast, 
so I started to a house about half a mile from the road and Jim 
follovred along behind me. When 1 reached the house the woman 
came out and I asked her if she would give us some breakfast 
T told hei- that we had had nothing to eat for two days and that 
Vv'e were hungry. She said to come in. We went into the kitchen 
and sat down at the table. She put out the buttermilk, light 
bread, butter and coffee, and when we were done we thanked her. 
but when we started to leave we ,found that we we^'e so heavily 
"loaded" that we could hardly walk. We traveled on, I don't re- 
member the distance, but found (reneral Lee's army near Fred- 
erick (yity, Md. We remained there two or three days and then 
started in the direction of Hagerstown, Md. When we i-eached 
Boonsl)oro we had another tight. The next day we moved on and 
soon heard the cannonading at Harper's Ferry, and when we 
reached Sharpsbui-g we heard that General Jackson had taken 
the place with ten thousand men and all the garrison. I could 
see General Lee a short distance from the road. He was on foot 
and Colonel Chilton, I think, was with him. General Lee was 
a short, heavy-set man, Avith iron-gray hair and the largest head 
1 ever saw. He carried his arm in a sling, as it had been injured^ 
by his horse falling with him at Manassas. The Federal army 
was close behind us. and I could see from the movements that 
we would soon have another bloody conflict. About that time the 
sergeant ordei-ed me to go back to the banks of the Antietam, on 
the picket line. 1 remained there all day and after dark returned 




This Picture shows the Confederate lines facing north. 
The Battle commenced that way and ended that way, but 
during part of the engagement they were facing the Federals 
west- (To be illustrated in next issue,) 



to my command, which was located near the old Dunkard Church. 
The next morning a small amount of bacon and flour wa? 
issued; I was trying to cook some bread; I took the ramrod out 
of my gun, wet up the flour without grease or salt, wrapped it 
around the ramrod, and was holding it over the fire when a shell 
from one of the Federal batteries fell, bursting near me, and 
breaking a man's leg. In less time than it takes to tell it we 
formed in line of battle, anTl the command was given to ' ' forward. ' ' 
Our ranks were so reduced that regiments looked like companies 
and brigades like regiments ; and this was about the condition of 
General Lee's army on that day. I don't remember the date, but 
it was between the 12th and 20th of September, 1862. Some were 
in hospitals, sick or wounded ; some discharged ; some dead. The 
Federals must have had about three or four to our one, and it was 
as near a knock-down and drag-out as anything I have ever seen 
or heard of. The air was full of shot and shell and we were in an 
open field, with no protection, and it seemed almost impossible fori 
a rat to live in such a place. The dead and dying were in every 
direction. I heard that the First Texas regiment lost nineteen 
color-bearers and finally lost their colors. I didn't take time to 
load my gun, for there were plenty of loaded guns lying on the 
ground by the side of the dead and wounded men, and they were 
not all Confederates; the Blue and the Gray were all mixed up 
The NeAv Jersey men were in front of us; this I found out the 
next day. alter' Generals Lee and McClellan had agreed upon a 
cessation of hostilities in order to take care of the dead and 
wounded. I f-aw a great many men go in that day who never 
came out, but it has been so long that I do not remember their 
names, not even the members of my own company. I saw Milt 
Garner go in, but never saw him again. He was an old friend 
and neighbor of mine, and his people now live in Navarro county 
Texas. T can remember a little fellow by the name of Paul. I 
was on picket with him the day before. He was the only Jew I 
ever saw in the anny, and belonged to Martin's company, from 
Henderson county, Texas, but I never saw Paul any more. I can 
remember that all that was left of our company, out of over 100. 
after we came out of that fight, was Captain "Winkler. Lieutenant 
Mills and eight men. We had hardly stacked our guns when a 
shell from one of the Federal batteries exploded near us, knockecj 
the guns down and came very near killing the balance of us. I 
could not help but think how different this was from the way it 
was pictured out to us in war speeches at the commencement. It 
reminded me of what one of our men by the name of Brooks told 
mo. He said he was on the picket line with an Irishman. The 



— 9— 



Federals outnumbered them and they knew it, and it began to bf 
a serious matter. So Mike said to the eapta n: "We must be 
gettmg away from here. They will kill us all. " "No- yrlst 
stand yom- ground, Mike," said the captain. "If you shonldZn 
pen to be killed here, there would be a great big monument erected 

"r/TSZ 1'' ^"f "? '^"^" -" "• 'SacredTothe mem' 
"les and he? ^'"'".'^'•"' '"' **<*'""' "^ "is country.' " 

saw Mte "Ldr '",/' "*'■' ''™'* •""■" «"« hundred years," 
said Mike, and I would never read a word of it sir" 

and l"""] ?'' ' T* ™' "'* "'<' "««■• t-earers among the dead 
and wounded near the old stone church. The first man I noticed 

tThirX^A^'f "^Tt"''^-- "^ '"^<*^ -otionf fTme to me 
to him He asked me if I would give him some water He said 
he had been ^,-,ng there twentyfour hours and was near^ dead 

Cder t tf [™"nTT '""' •" """ - I -- remember, and 
1 handed it to him. I thmk he drank it all or most of it Tie 

hen said he felt better, and that he could not hive live] mjch 

longer without water.- 1 think he said he belonged to the TWrtTenth 

Nw Jersey, and had beeB'ii,-the army only about two weeks He 

Ind iteTl't "T " ''^ *"''''' '"'* ^"PP""-"^" himself, mother 
and sister, but now he was crippled and dfil not know what would 
become of them or whether he would ever see tH^m again Ibout 
hat time my attention was attracted to the litter beTrers tZn. 
to move a man that had been killed the day before. There S 
dog lying bc«de him, and every time they started toward the man 

n V si;rp""nC7 '' ^^^^ -d^™-l^ he thought the manTas 
only asleep,. Ihey were meditating about what to do-to move 

he ma, they won d have to kill the dog. I started toward tW 
and m passing a tree I heard a minnie ball strike the tree and 
one of the litter bearers cried, "Drop that gun. We are undeTa 

wJ^ifd'd T; J™ ?'«" ■"'* *° "'"-' »"' >■»'' with a"gt..^ 
W ell. It didn 't take me long to drop that gun. The best friend to 
man IS the dog; next is the horse, and many a poor horse tosii^ 
life trying to serve the man. , 

That night, between midnight and day, we crossed the Potomac 
We trajcled on about two miles and lay do™ beside the road 
About daylight we heard the roar of artillery and m^kery be- 
hind us. From this we knew that the Federals were follow ng us 

I '""fJ'-T'^ *""* '^™*'™' •J''*^'"' had stationed his men on 
the south side of the river, and when the Federals began ToZZ 
he gave hem a lot of dead and wounded to take care of We had 
no more trouble with them for a while. We traveled on and when 
we reached Fort Royal we had another fight and there we W 
(^aptam Woodward of the First Texas, who' came from Paresttoe 



-10- 



Texas. 

We traveled on, and one day halted on the side of the road tc 
rest. Bill Fuller had just come in with some whisky. He was an 
old man, and the captain never tried to control him. He would 
always go into a fight, but he was never very particular about 
keeping up on a march or staying in camp. Often he would try 
to borrow General Hood's horse to go to town to pick up strag 
glers. The artillery and wagons were passing, and Bill was hav 
ing something to say to everybody, and we were all laughing at 
him. About that time General Hood and his staff came along, and 
Bill jumped up and gave him a salute and said : ' ' Early camps to- 
night. General, and plenty of meat and bread." "Sir," replied 
General Hood, ' ' we will stop about a mile and a half from here. ' ' 
"If it's- all the same with j^ou. General," says Bill, "leave out 
the 'about,' and tell us how far it is, for we are awful hungry and 
tired." Captain Winkler was a good-natured kind of a man, and 
I never heard him utter a profane word, but he was out of pa- 
tience with Bill. He turned around to us and said: "You con> 
founded fellows, I am trying to quiet the man, and you all arQ 
encouraging him. I'll have the last one of you arrested if you 
don't let him alone. Fuller, if you don't dry up I will have you 
put in the guard house as soon as we stop." "All right, cap 
tain," replied Bill, "I am either on guard or under guard all the 
time, and it's all the same with me, sir." On one occasion when the 
minnie balls and shells begin to fly around the captain says, 
"hold your position, man." Bill says, "hold the devil, captain 
you had better let us fall back in that hollow." Bill died abou* 
two years ago in Wharton county, Texas. He was totally blind 
and his hair was as white as cotton. Captain King had agreed 
to take him into the Confederate home, but it was too late. When 
I wrote to him to come to Austin, that Sam Billingsley and myself 
would sign his papers, his family answered and said he had been 
dead about three weeks. , 

We were now on the south bank of the Rappahanock, near 
Fredericksburg, and many of the men who had been sick and 
wounded came in. The Federal army was on the north bank. 
They tried to cross and drive us south, and there we had another 
fight, but most of it was in front of General Jackson. It was 
about this time that the Eighteenth Georgia left us and went to 
some other department. They were a gallant set of men, and called 
themselves the Third Texas. We regretted to see them go, but the 
Third Arkansas took their place — a regiment of good men. 

It was now December, and there is plenty of snow, and it is 



—11— 



very cold Captain Reilly and some of the other officers called out 
the" men for a snowball fight. There must have been at least ten 
thousand men engaged in the battle. Snow flew in every direc 
tion Reilly 's battery was attached to Hood s brigade. Captain 
Roilly was "on his horse, and had the appearance of a Lager 
Beer" Dutchman. ' ' The men piled snow upon him until it was a., 
most impossible to tell the color of his horse, but still he seemed to 
eniov the sport. The next day we went down on the banks t)t the 
Rappahanock on picket. The Federals were on the opposite side. 
We sat there and talked to them all day. One of them said, 
"Boys can't vou throw me over some tobacco? All rigtit, 

was 'the answer. ''Throw us over some late papers and we 11 
throw vou some tobacco." This we did by tying a rock to it but 
General Lee soon heard of this and stopped it. We had to do 
something: some of the men played cards; some chuck-a-luck. 
We organized a court martial to try some of the men. We were 
reminded that when the fight commenced at Manassas they were 
issuino- rations, and it was necessary to detail two men from each 
company to take the bacon and crackers and go to the rear Jor- 
dan and Warren started to the rear for our company and when 
thev were about a half mile off, where the shells from the Federal 
batteries would fall and explode, they pulled ioT tall timber, and 
it was nearly two davs before they joined the company. Bob 
Crawford was the marshal, George Foster was the attorney and 
I was the judge advocate. Warren's case was called, and it was 
decided to ride him on a pole, which was done; but he soon 
lumped ofi', with his butcher knife in his hand, and the boys had 
all theycouid do to keep out of his reach. All this time Jordan was 
-ittino' down before the fire whittling, apparently indifferent as 
to what was going on. When his name was called I proposed to 
the court that before we proceed with the regular order of busi- 
ness that we duestion Mr. Jordan and see whether or not he 
was in his right mind when he ran off with the meat. George 
Foster tapped him on the shoulder and said : "Come, Ira; you 
hear what the judge says?" "Jordan turned around in an in- 
different kind of way and replied: "Now, look here, boys 
enouoh of anything is enough. I am in my right mind now, and 
it vc.u fellows fool with me I'll stick my knife in some of you. 
Of course when he said this, the men all whooped and yelled, 
and some of the ofRr-ers, hearing them, interfered and broke up 

the court. . . , . », 

We soon sta)-ted south (that is, Longstreet s corps), and lett 

Generals Lee and Jackson in command of the position. We 

stopped near Ashland, twenty-seven miles north of Richmond 



^ 



—12— 

Snow was on the ground and it was very cold. John Duran ar" •'•^• 
Bob Holloway had just come in. They were in a fine talking 
Ihrnnor. I think they found some applejack somewhere, for they 
were full of new ideas. It was after dinner; John said, "Jerry, 
I am hungry ; I want something to eat. " " Well, John, ' ' replied 
Jerry, ''"the boys eat everything up. " "The devil you say i where 
are my peas?" "I cooked them and they eat tham." "That's a 
•devil of a tale to tell. I carried them peas forty miles, and now 
I eome in hungry — nearly starved — and not a pea left." I will 
not mention the balance he said, for it would not be very edifying 
to church people. Jerry Caddell, Jack Hill and Stokes were 
killed in the ditches at Petersburg. While in those ditches Gen* 
eral Lee and his staff came along with an instrument, trying to 
make a calculation of the distance to the Federal batteries, and 
one of our men said to them: "Mister,, how far can you see 
through that thing?" "Oh, I can see a long ways/' was the re- 
ply. "Well, I wish you would look through that thing and tell 
us how far it is to the end of this war. ' ' 

We left Ashland and traveled on to Richmond. Snow had 
been falling all the time. Some of the men were almost bare- 
footed, and as they traveled they left blood in their tracks. We 
didn't know where we were going or what we were going to do. 
I supposed we were going to have another killing, but I didn't 
think many of us were fat enough for market. We traveled on 
from Richmond to Petersburg; snow was still falling. We were 
cold and hungry, but we felt that we needed rest and sleep more 
than anything else. When we stopped we raked aAvay the snow, 
spread our blankets and bunked up three and four together, 
The next morning we were covered with snow. At roll call two 
of our men were missing, Harris and Terrell. About 10 o'clock 
in the day somebody stepped on them; thej^ were covered with 
snow about ten inches deep. We cleared away the snow and 
raised the old tent cloth and then the blankets, then a puff of 
smoke went up into the air, and there they lay, sound asleep 
We remained at Peterburg a few days and then moved on, 
finally stopping near Suffolk, on the Nanceman river. Here we 
lost Captain Turner of the Fifth Texas and Terrell of our com- 
pany, trying to take a gunboat. 

There was a line of rifle pits about two hundred and fifty yards 
in front of the Federal batteries. There was a call for volunteers 
to go into these pits ; I was one to volunteer. We had to go in at 
night and come out at night; ten or twelve men in a pit and a 
hundred and twenty-five rounds of cartridges to each man. Now 
these breastworks in front of us had barrels filled with sand on 



—13- 

of them, with just enough room between them for a musket, 
and when we could not see daylight between the barrels of sand 
that was the time to shoot. I don 't remember now whether it was 
my first or second day in the pit, but it was about 3 o'clock in the 
evening, when one of the Federals shot at me, struck my hat brim 
and took a small piece off my right ear ; this was a close call, but 
a miss is as good as a mile. We were watching them carry some 
fellow away on a litter when one of our men cried: "Look out, 
boys ; that old cannon will go off directly. " We just had time to 
back ourselves up against the front side of the pit when boom 
went the cannon, and a shell about the size of a lamp post burst 
a little in front of us. A piece of it struck the back part of my 
hat brim and shaved the breast of my jacket — pnother close call. 
Another piece struck the ground about ten feet in front of the 
pit, digging a hole deep enough to bury a horse and rolling about 
two wagon loads of dirt in on us. I can remember that we had to 
rake the dirt off a man named Holms. I never saw a man more 
excited than he was ; he thought we were all dead. As for myself, 
1 never thought I would live to see the sun go down. I don't re- 
member ever seeing Holms again, as he belonged to a different 
compaiiy, l)ut I am satisfied it is the last time he ever volunteered, 
to go into a rifle pit within two hundred and fifty yards of the 
batteries. It settled ]| with me; I thought if I did what I was 
ordered to do after that, that would be enough. I think we left 
Suffolk during March or April, 1863, and went back to Peters- 
burg and Rielunond, and then went north and joined General Lee 
somewhere on the Rappahanock. Then the whole army, with 
Stuai't's cavalry, started north. We all knew we would soon have 
another big killing. 

Nothing of importance happened on the march; plenty of 
rain, creeks all up, and a hard time on the gray backs, not many 
young men of ttiis generation know what a gray-back is, but if 
they had been in General Lee's army one month without chang 
jng their clothing they would know the meaning of the word 
General Jackson had gone' to his long home and General A. P 
Hill took his place. We crossed the Potomac river at Williams- 
port, Md.. on the 26th of June, 1863. Here we took a lot of gov 
^rnment stores from the Federals, and among other things a lo* 
of whisky. It was rolled out on the hill, the heads knocked out 
:)f the barrels and issued to the men by the cupful. I don't sup 
pose the oldest man living in America ever saw as many drunk 
men at any one time. It was all the officers could do to holc^ 
them down; they were full of new ideas. Colonel Manning of 
the Third Arkansas was very strict Avith his men. and he tried 
to carry out army regulations. "Take that man and dip him in 



-14- 



the creek, ' " he commanded. ' * Now, set him up on his feet and see 
if he can walk." The man staggered a little and fell down. 
"Dip him in again." All the other officers had all they could do 
to kee]^ the men from fighting. 

We traveled on and stopped at Greencastle, Pa. General Lee 
issued orders to the men not to leave their commands, as they 
were now in the enemy's country, and not to depredate on the 
citizens. We traveled on through Chamhersburg ; the houses 
were all closed and the women waved the Stars and Stripes at tis. 
We moved on a short distance and then stopped and struck 
camp. The people here were all Dunkards. They seemed to 
think more of their stock than they did of themselves; they had 
a very fine barn, but lived in a very ordinary looking house. I 
was put on guard at one of these houses, and stood at the gate 
all day to keep the men from depredating on them. A woman 
called me in to dinner, which was one of the finest meals I ever 
sat down to. The old lady remarked: "Oh, this cruel war! I 
just wish you men with your muskets could get them big fellows 
• in a ring and stick your bayonets in to them and make, them fight 
it out. You could settle it in a few minutes." I was young 
then and had never given the subj^n-t a sober thought, but since I 
have often thought of that old woman's remarks. Of course we 
all know now, for we have some experience in war, that if all the 
leaders and men who make M'-ar speeches and excite the people 
knew that in case of war they would have to pick up their gim 
and help fight the battles and take their chances along with the 
men there would not be many Avars. They would adopt Dr. 
Franklin's plan — raise the money and pay for the territory ov 
property in question rather than go to war. 

We traveled on, and soon heard cannonading and knew that 
the ball had opened. Late in the afternoon we heard that oui- 
column had had a fight with the Federals. This was the first 
day's fight at Gettysburg. I always thought it was on the 2d of 
July, but in order to agree with everybody else I will call it the 
Ist of July, 1863. By sun-up the next day we passed over the 
battleground and saw the dead and wounded, and we could see 
our artillery in front of us. all unlimbered and in battle array. 
flags flying and men going in every direction. About 4 o'clock in 
the afternoon, I understand, we Avere on the right of General 
Lee's army; the line of battle was seven miles long. Sam Miller 
and I left the I'anks to get" canteens of Avater for our company 
and I never saw Sam any more until the Avar Avas OA'^er ; he Avas 
captured and sent to Fort Delaware. Mat Beasley was ordei-ed 
to take Captain Porter's old company, from TTimtsville, into the 




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-1.6- 



fight. They had never gone into a fight and came out with a 
captain or lieutenant. We all gathered around Mat and said tc 
him, ' ' Good-bye ; you are gone now, ' ' Bob Crawford said : "I 
am sorry for you, but I can't help you any." He was the only 
captain that ever came out alive^with that company. Moving 
slowly, we entered the valley in a wheat field. We could see the 
Federals on the hills to our left, and the Stars and Stripes waving 
at us. About this time a shell from the Federal batteries came 
along through our lines and cut a man 's head off ; his name was 
Floyd, from San Antonio. I was within about forty steps of him. 
Just then the command was given to "forward!" It was 300 oi 
400 yards to the foot of the hill, on which bordered a rock fence. 
When we were forty or fifty steps from this fence the Federal 
batteries on the hill turned loose at the fence with solid shot, 
and rocks were flying in every direction. This scattered our men ; 
many of them were killed, wounded and captured. We wer€ 
right in front of the battery. No time for shining shoes. Sc* 
great was the confusion that I have no recollection of passing 
over the fence. I can remember when I was about half way up 
the hill I stopped behind a big rock to load my gun ; I could see 
Captain Reilly's battery a little to our right, and he was cleaning 
off the top of that hill. There was a solid blaze of fire in front 
of his battery. Right here, as well as I can remember. Bill Smith 
fell. He was a son of Tom I. Simith, an old pioneer, after whom 
Smith county, Texas, was jiamed. He left his wife with her 
father, W. H. Mitchell, at the head of Richland and Chamber's 
creek, ten miles west of Millford, Ellis county, Texas, and never 
saw her any more, and I doubt if she ever knew what became of 
him. When we reached the battery at the top of the hill the 
men had all left. Some dead were lying around, I don't remem- 
ber how many. Harris of our company was in front of me. He 
put his hand on the cannon and was looking over the hill. The 
cannon was lying on a rock, I think, and the wheels behind the 
rock. I could hear tfie minnie balls going over our heads. I said 
to him : ' ' Hold on, Harris ; we are by ourselves ; wait till the 
balance come up." "Oh, I want to see where they have gone," 
replied Harris; "thej'' are not far off." About that time a shell 
burst in front of us and a piece of it went through his breast, and 
it seemed to me that I could run my arm through that man's 
body. His face turned as white as cotton, and, strange to say, 
he turned around and tried to walk in that condition, but fell 
over and was dead in less than five minutes. His people lived, 
somewhere in Virginia, but I don't know their address. Now, I 
i-oidd see the Third Arkansas to our left, and could hear Colonel 



I 



Manning- 's voice ; then I saw three or four hundred Federals 
throw down their guns and surrender to them. I saw General 
Hood walking down the hill holding his arm. I understood his 
arm was broken above the elbow and four inches of the bone 
taken out. By dajdight the next morning we had a line of battle 
on top of that hill ; we lay there all day. About 12 o'clock in the 
(lay T heard firing in our rear. I saw a house on fire and thought 
we were surrounded and would be captured, but I soon learned 
that a regiment of Federal cavalry was trying to destroy General 
Lee's ammunition train, which was protected by two regiments 
f)f infantry. The Federals succeeded until they were right in 
among the wagons ; then the infantry closed in on them, and .1 
don 't think a man escaped. The colonel refused to surrender and 
shot himself. Then commenced an artillery duel. General Lee 
had two hundred and twenty-five pieces of artillery, and he 
hirned all of it loose on the FederaLlines, and I suppose the Fed- 
erals had as many or more to reply with. Just imagine what a 
tliiindering noise all these cannon made, all firing, you might say. 
ill once, to say nothing about the loss of life and property! I 
(Hver did believe that any man knew the number of armed men 
t Imaged on both sides at the Battle of Gettysburg, but I will give 
!i as my opinion, from what I could see and hear, there must have 
l);en, all told, Federals and Confederates, at least 175,000 men 
;ind the numi)er of killed, wounded and captured, on both sides 
i 'tween 40,000 and 45,000 men. It has been forty years now. 
■ iiid I don't remember the names of my own company that were 
it St . iim h le>,s the army. We lost our lieutenant colonel, Carter of 
ill!' P'oiii'th Texas, and I heard that Hood's Brigade lost 500 or 
r.OO men. About 3 or 4 o'clock in the evening of the third day 
:ii Gettysbui'g Ave were still in line of battle on the hills; I don't 
know enough about the coimtry to say whether it was Cemetery 
I ridge. Littie Round Top, or what it was. The Federals made a 
thnrge and our left gave way. We fell back in the valley and 
fur-med in line of battle. I heard the cavalry horses and the horns. 
"Look out, boys!" some one shouted; ''get ready for a cavalry 
•liarge." But for some reason they never came. I suppose their 
|)riulence arid judgment got the best of them. I know nothing 
;ihont the cavalry service, but I know it's a hard matter to get a 
lot of cavalry to charge a line of infantry. They know it's a 
s( rious matter, for many of them will go to their long homes when 
they try it. It began to get dark and commenced raining. The 
sci'geant ordered me to go back on the side of the mountain on 
|;i'kot ;J.ieutenant Mills of our company was with us. Lieutenant 
I'uLih Fuller. Fifth Texas, from Houston, and T sat down on a 



—IB- 
big rock. We were compelled to keep up a strong picket line all 
night. Dead men were all around us, and it rained all night. 
It was as dark as a nigger's pocket. I was sleepy, hungry and 
tired. I could feel the gray-backs moving around. I knew it 
would take a dose of red pepper occasionally and somebody to 
stick pins in me all night to keep me awake, but it would not do 
to go to sleep here. Between midnight and day I was nearly dead. 
completely exhausted. I lost all feeling of fear or duty and be- 
gan to nod a little. Lieutenant Mills came along and tapped me 
on the shoulder and said: "Don't go to sleep here." But if I 
had knoAvu that I would be shot the next minute, it would have 
be(ni all tlie same with me. But Mills was an old neighbor and 
friend, and he said nothing about it, but it would have been a 
serious matter with me if he had reported me. At daylight Gen- 
eral Lee's army moved off and left the battlefield of Gettysburg. 
About 8 or 9 o'clock he came riding along, and the men began 
to wave their hats and cheer him. He simply raised his hat, rode 
along and said nothing. He was plain, simple and unassuming 
in his manners, and never encouraged anything of this kind. We 
all wanted to show him that we had not lost confidence in him, 
and he understood it that way. General Lee was a man who had 
1)ut little to say to anybody. He always looked to me like he was 
grieving about the Avant of men and means to carry out his plans. 
Patrick Henry defines it as "the illusions of hope. But, as our 
enemies would say, we are looking for something that we have 
never lost and don't expect to find. " About this time a copy of 
Harper's Weekly has a picture of General Robert E. Lee, and 
says that, ' ' although he was edvicated at th« expense of the gov- 
ment he is now trying to destroy, he is looked upon by the eyes of 
the world as master of the arts of war. ' ' 

We passed through Hatterstown between midnight and day, 
crossed the Potomac and went down through Virginia to Rich- 
mond; there we shipped for Bragg 's army. We stopped at Well- 
don, N. C. which is a junction of railroads ; here there were a lot 
of North Carolina men on another train going south. There must 
have been a thousand barrels of resin on the ground, and we 
began to throw resin at the tar-heels. One of them asked : "Have 
you got any good tobacco ? " " No, ' ' we replied, "but we have one 
of the begt chaws of resin you ever saw." About that time we 
could hear their guns click-click-cliek. It was all the officers could 
do to stop it; if they hadn't intervened there would have been 
blood shed right there. We started west and traveled north through 
North Carolina. The train was heavily loaded and we traveled 
slow. Some of us were on top of the cars; one fellow playing a 
fiddle; another fellow down in the car blowing a horn, all happy 



-19- 

as lords, yet knowing at the same time that we were going right 
into another big killing and that many of us would go to our long 
homes. We traveled to Atlanta, Ga., and then to a point near 
Dalton. 

It was Thursday afternoon, September 16, 1863 ; rations were 
issued to us and we commenced cooking. We could hear cannon- 
ading, but it was a long way off. We soon received orders to 
make preparations to move, and we traveled all that night. The 
next da3% Fridaj^ about 10 o 'clock, we ran into some Federal cav- 
alry, and knocked some of them off their horses ; some of our men 
secured some new cavalry hats,, but they afterward lost them at 
the night fight at Missionary Ridge. Bill Calhoun, Fourth Texas, 
from Austin, came into camp with an old cap on. "Bill, where 
is you hat?" asked one of the boys. "Oh, it belonged to a gen- 
tleman from Iowa," answered Bill, "and he came after it." We 
traveled all day Friday, halting some time during the night. 
Saturday morning we continued our march, and about 3 o'clock 
in the afternoon of the 17th or 18th of September, 1863, we were 
near the center of the Federals' line of battle. The booming of 
cannon and roaring of musketry commenced on both sides. We 
moved up in line of battle; Cheatham's division (Tennessee 
troops), I think, were in front of us, and I understand there were 
two lines behind us, Cleburne 's and Hindman 's making four lines 
of battle in front of the Federals. We were ordered to halt and 
lie down. Shot and shell were coming through the woods from 
the Federal batteries; Cheatham's men coming out wounded in 
every way. Occasionally an artilleryman came out with his swab 
on his shoulder, showing that he had lost his battery. About this 
time two negroes met near me, one going in, the other coming out. 
The one coming out ^id : "Where are you gwine ? " "I am gwine 
to carry Captain (somebody) his dinner," the negro answered. 
' ' You are the biggest fool nigger I ever saw. Dat man 's dead. 1 
speet I don't know what the white folks thinking about, nohow; 
the way they are killin' one another now, there w^on't be nobody 
left, and I don't know what they want with the country after 
everybody is dead." At this moment a shell from the Federal 
batteries came along, cutting the timber down in front of it. The 
two negroes dropped to the ground, filled with terror. "Now, 
just look at dat!" continued one of the negroes. "Any man or 
set of men dat will shoot such things as dat at folks, and den talk 
about Christianity, dey is got no raisin' and is black-hearted. Just 
look how de men is comin' out shot! You just ought to be up 
yonder where I 'se been ; some of them on de ground, hurt so bad 
thev can 't walk, some dead : don 't talk to me 'bout wai*. I done 



20 



>r('ii enoiiirli now. ' About the time he tiuished .saying this an 
other shell came whizzing along. "Look here!'' he cried, "we'd 
better get away from here; dar's gwine to be some dead niggers 
right here. ' ' And that was the last I saw of them. 

Of eonrt-;e I knew we would soon be ordered into the fight and 
that some of ns would never come out. I walked up to Tobe Riggs 
of our company. He had never missed a battle or roll call. He 
was a cousin of mine. He had been having chills and looked bad. 
"Tobe," I said to him, "you ought not to go into this fight; the 
doctor will excuse you." "Oh. I'm all right," he replied. I could 
say no more. Just then the command was given : "Attention, cap 
}our pieces, foi'ward, guide center, march: give way to the right, 
give way to the left." When we reached Cheatham's line, about 
two hundred and fi'fty yards distant, we found them in the edge of 
an old field. They were all behind trees, but so many of them had 
been killed and wounded that it looked more like a picket line than 
a line of ])attle. They yelled for joy when they saw us coming: 
they expected to be all killed right there. We did not take time to 
exchange compliments. As well as I can remember the Federal 
lines were in a ditch fence about Uxo hundred and fifty yards off. 
and we made no halt, but passed through Cheatham's lines, and T 
think they joined us, and as soon as the Federals discovered our 
approach they gave us a salute by waving the Stars and Stripes at 
us, in order to ridieule the idea of us coming toward them. Then 
they emptied their guns at us, and it seemed that every third oi- 
fourth man in our line was cut down. Billie ('arroll and Tobe 
Riggs both fell not over five or six feet from me. We lost Dock 
Childers and Chisum Walker, but they did not fall so near me : 
but all four of them were of Winkler's old company, from Cor- 
sicana, Texas. I suppose if we had stopped^there and given the 
Federals time to reload their guns they would have killed the rest 
of us, but we moved on to them with loaded guns. We l)roke their 
lines; I don't loiow what their loss was, but there were dead and 
wounded Federal soldiers in every direction. Aft^r we broke 
through their line I went back to see what had become of Riggs. 
I found that his leg was broken at the knee joint. Billie Carroll, 
who was lying near Riggs, was dead. I lifted Tobe up on 
feet ; of course it was painful. His face was as white as cotton. I 
found Abe Rogers, of Martin 's company, from Henderson county. 
Texas, near Tobe ; he was shot in the instep of his foot, and was 
making a great deal more noise than Tobe. I placed him up on 
his feet and walked between him and Tobe some two or three hun- 
dred yards and turned them over to Dr. Jones, surgeon of the 
P'ourth Texas regiment, and never saw them any more. I went 



—21— 

> 

baek and joinod my eompany, but the Federals had disappeared, 
I sat down beside a wounded Indiana man, and he asked me for 
some water. I gave him my canteen and talked to him a few min- 
utes. l"'here was a dead man lying near him. I opened the dead 
man's knapsack and proceeded to read his letters; he must have 
had fort}' or fifty, mostly from women in the State of Indiana. 
In one it seems he had been boasting about their great victory at 
Gettysburg. She answered him and said : "You men in the army 
seem to consider it a great victory for the Federals at the battle of 
Gettysburg, but if you could only be at home now and see the 
widows and orphans, made so by the battle of Gettysburg, you 
would not consider it much of a victory." (The battle we had 
just passed through was the battle of Chiekamauga, and, as well 
as I can remember it, was Saturday, the 18th of September. 1863. 
The Kansas, Illinois and Indiana men ivere in front of us, and 
they could stand killing better than any men I ever saw.) I was 
very much intei-ested in reading these letters, but I heard some 
one on a horse approaching behind me. I turned around, and 
found it was Genei-al Hood sitting on his horse looking at me. 
"Well," he said, "you didn't get hurt!" No, sir," I replied. 
"IIow did your regiment come out?" he asked. "We lost a great 
many men," I answered, "but I don 't krow how many." "Well. 
I am very sorry to hear it." he replied, and rode off. When the 
wai- commenced Hood was appointed cohtnel of our j-egiment (the 
Fourth Texas), and he knew ns all by sight, but could not call our 
names. Tie was a social, kind-hearted mnn. but a little impulsive 
at times. He would often walk up to me and shake hands with 
me aiul talk to me, but never knew my name. He was different 
from most of the old army officers. He recognized the fact that 
most of the men in the Confedei'ate army were good, respectable 
citizens at home, atid that it was public spirit and sense of duty 
that caused tliem to be there. General Hood could get order out 
of confusion on a battleiield in less time and apparently with less 
troul)le than any man I ever saw. I can remember that there was 
an Indian who went out with us to Virginia; the rattle of mus- 
ketry he stood as well as any of us. but whenever the artillery 
turned loose he would give a whoop and run like a turkey. "Too 
much for Injim." he would say. At the battle of Seven Pines 
General Hood came along the line, and this Indian was guarding 
some prisoners. "What are you keeping those prisoners standing 
there for?" question General Hood. "(Joing to take them, down 
in the woods and kill them," was the reply. "No, you are not 
going to do any such thing." said (xenrral Hood. "Sergeant," 
he continued, "take these i>risoners to the rear." 

Saturday night, the 18th of September, at Chiekamauga, we all 



\ 



—22— 

lay down in linf^ of battle. We oonld hear the Federals cutting 
down trees and bnildino; breastworks, and we knew that we would 
have to get np next morning and take those breastworks, regard- 
less of cost, and with that vast army in front of us, and they be- 
hind the breastworks, we knew that it was a serious matter. By, 
sun up Sunday morning, the 19th, we were in line of battle. Gen- 
eral Longstreet had just come up, and I could see him and other 
officers riding up and down the line, and I knew from this that we 
would soon have another big killing. About 8 or 9 o clock the 
command was given : "Attention, forward, guide center, march " 
Jack Massie took hold of me and said : "You get by the side of 
me; when you fall I want that watch you have got on." Boh 
Crawford said, "I want his boots." We moved forward, and 
when we reaclK^d the first line of breastworks, which was com- 
posed of t]'ees and parts of houses, the Federals were on the re- 
treat. Shot and shell were flying in every direction; minnie balls 
could be heard whizzing through the air, and the roar of artillery 
Avas deafening. About this time I fell to the ground. This settled 
it with me, and J have no recollection of AThat happened after that 
When I recovered I was lying in a hospital tent. Wounded men 
were all around me. I turned over and Jack Massie was right be- 
side me. I said to him, "Ts that you, Jack?" "Yes," he an- 
swered. "My leg's cut off; Tobe Riggs died a few minutes ago." 
I'hey had cut Tobe's leg off, giving him chloroform, and he never 
woke up. I had no idea what was the matter Avith me; I Avas 
bloody, sick and nearly dead from thirst, and to say that ] had a 
headache Avould not express it. I found that a minnie ball had 
struck me in the temple, in front of the- right ear, and lodged in 
the back of my head. I turned to Jack and asked him how long I 
had been there, ])iit I don't remember whether he said Tuesday 
or Wednesday, but helicA'e he said Wednesday; T AA'as Avounded on 
Sunday. Tn a few days T was able to Ava^k around a little. I could 
see muskets lying (m the ground in every direction, and a pile of 
arms and legs, whir-h had been cut oft' of men. I suppose it Avould 
have taken a wagon, and perhaps tAVO, to have carried the arms 
and legs cut oft' of men on the battlefield of Chickamauga. In a 
few days I was sent to Richmond, and, I think it Avas some time in 
December, the ball Avas cut out of my head. It was a delicate 
piece of Avork, a great deal of risk about it. Dr. Charles Bell GJib- 
son, at the corner of Clay street and Brooks avenue, Richmond, 
Va., performed the operation. Dr. Gibson was considered th^ 
finest surgeon in the Confederacy. Of course I Avas under the in- 
fluence of chloroform and unconscious and knew nothing of what 
happened, except Avhat they told me afterward. He cut the skin 
on the back of my head, found the outside skull hones broken, 



—23— 

lifted the pieces of bone and found the ball, about one-half the 
length of the forefinger, lodged in the back of my head. He was 
unable to secure a hold on it with his instruments and was com- 
pelled to use a chisel and hammer. I suppose the old gray jacket 
and minnie ball can be found among the war relics at Richmond 
today. It took about three months for my head to heal ; Mrs. Oli- 
ver waited on me. She washed the hole with a syringe and warm 
soap suds and water every twenty-four hours, for nearly three* 
months ; had to ke^p the place open so it would heal inside first, 
The doctor said if it was let alone it woiild heal outside in a few 
days and inflammation would set in and kill me. Mrs. Oliver, of 
whom I speak, I think, is long since in her grave. She saved my 
life several times, and my bones today would be in the sod of old 
Virginia had it not been for her. She carried me through one 
long spell of sickness in the winter of 1861, and twice afterward, 
when I was wounded. And I am not the only Confederate soldier 
she waited on. I heard General Hood say of her: "Mrs. Oliver. 
I have often heard my men speak of you in very high terms, and 
I consider it my duty to thank you for your kindness." Our 
women have often proven themselves heroines in war as well as 
peace. I have often seen them, born and reared in luxury, who 
had never seen a wounded man before, pass through hospitals, 
waiting on the patients, and the sight of it would make the msick, 
but they would do all that was possible for women to do. And 
today it's the influence of the women over the men that provides 
the comforts for the old Confederates in their declining years. 

By the month of March, 1864, I was again able to travel. Gen- 
eral Hood was now in Richmond. He lost his leg at Chickamauga 
He wrote a very complimentary letter to the Secretary of War, 
and said 1 had always done my duty and that I was worthy of 
promotion. The President endorsed the letter and said that "the 
within communication, and verbal assurance of members of Con- 
gress, convinces me of his fitness for promotion, and I commend 
him to your kind attention." signed Jefi:'erson Davis, James A. 
Seddon. The Secretary of War issued me a captain 's commission 
and transportation west of the'Hississippi river. General Hood 
told me "good-bye." and cautioned me about going inside the 
Federal lines; that I might get caught when I least expected it 
and spoil everything. I crossed the Mississippi river ani joined 
General Price's army; I found then at Prairie De Ann, Arkansas. 
I took part in a few cavalry fights, but this didn 't looic like sol- 
diering to me, so. at the suggestion of General Price and Colonel 
Campbell. I joined an expedition to go into Missouri and get out 
some recruits for our army. Now, this was a new business to me. 
and it is attended with a great deal of risk, but T had made so 



^ 



-24- 



many narrow escapes that I had become perfectly reckless and 
never thought of danger or that I would ever see the inside of a 
prison. I think it was now July, 1864. It was raining all the 
time, and we were compelled to swim all the creeks and rivei's. 
We went from one neighborhood to another, and the men knew 
everybody, so all went well till we were near a place, I think it 
was Salem, Mo., or Rolla, I forget which. Here there were some 
Federal soldiers stationed. We camped in the woods, and the 
next morning, about sun up, we started out to strike the big road, 
Dick Kitchens and myself in front. I said, "Dick, 1 don't like 
this big road; let's get out of it." "We will leave it directly/' 
replied. Dick. Just then we came to a short turn in the road and 
were within forty or fifty steps of a lot of Federal cavalry, who 
were coming toward us. They began to pull their pistols on us 
The balance of our men behind us heard Dick call out, "Put up 
them pistols; put up them pistols." We all pulled our guns, as 
the only thing to be done was to run the bluff on them. Dick went 
right at them, with his pistol drawn, and they soon concluded 
that a good run was better than a bad stand and soon disap- 
peared. Knowing that they would soon return with reinforce 
ments, which they did, Dick said to us: "Now, let's get away 
from here." Then it was a run throiigh the brush for five or six 
miles. I lost my saddlebags, all my clothing and papers and fif- 
teen hundred dollars in Confederate money. My horse seemed 
to take in the situation, and it was all I could do to stick to him ; 
I kept in sight of Dick, as I was a sti-anger in the country. Not a 
man in our crowd would have surrendered on any kind of terms ; 
the Federals could have taken us in. because they outnumbered 
us, but they knew to do this there would be twelve or fifteen of 
them left on the ground dead or wounded, and none of them 
wanted to die. In those days the people of Missouri and 
Kentucky were divided in sentiment, some Union and some 
Confederate, and tliey were arrayed in deadly coinbat, r.nd in 
the State of Kentucky they are still that way to some extent. In 
Missouri it is reported that the Federals would burn down 
houses and turn women and children out of doors if any of 
the men were in the Confederate army. This made the men 
desparate. I understood there was a heavy reward for Dick 
Kitchens and several men in our crowd. I then commenced to 
make propositions to get what men we could together and turn 
back south; when I fight I like to have some show for my life. 
But there was a trip to be made into St. Louis by some one in 
the crowd, and I was the only man who was not known to the 
Union people. It is not often that a man will tell anything that 



—25- 

is liable to reflect on his character or good sense, but I always 
acted upon the principle that it was best to tell the truth and 
shame the devil. I consented, but I must say that I never did 
anything in my life with more reluctance. As General Hood 
said to me when we parted in Richmond: "Like all games of 
chance, if you are successful, you are all right; but if you fail, 
you are all wrong, and your best friends will doubt your loy- 
alty. " When I reached St. Louis I found people I had known 
all my life and some of them relatives. Of course I soon became 
reconciled, but the trouble was that I knew too many people. 
I did what I agreed to do, made a trip over into Illinois, and 
shipped everything out on the railroad, and when I was making 
preparations to leave a detective walked up to me and said the 
provost marshal wanted to see me. Well, I knew then that it 
was all settled with me. I was taken to the Gratiot street 
prison, and carried a ball and chain for six months, not know- 
ing at what minute I might be taken out and shot. I had not 
been there long before seven men were taken out and executed 
to retaliate for something that General Marmaduke had done. 
I knew one of them, Jim Mulligan; I went to school with him, 
I think, in Batesville, Ark., in 1854 and 1855. Soon after- 
ward a man by the name of Livingston was taken out and hanged 
as a spy; then another man by the name of Smith. Of course 
I thought my time would come next, but finally I was taken 
out and tried by coui't-martial, charged with being inside the 
Federal lines, trying to pilot men out of the Federal lines into 
the Confederate army, and shipping arms and ammunition 
through the lines. It was a serious matter with me. and about 
all the defense I had was on a line Avith the Irishman before 
the court for getting drunk and disturbing the peace. The 
judge said: "Now. Pat, are you guilty or not?" "I don't 
know, indeed, Mr. Judge, till I hear the evidence," was the 
reply. Not having any pi'oof I was sent to the old peniten- 
tiary at Alton, 111., to be confined there until the close of the 
war. 

Now I am a convict, not entitled to exchange or parole. I 
have lost my citizenship and the respect of all my friends and 
relatives. After about nine months, confinement and hard living 
my constitution gave way and I suffered with congestion of the 
lungs. The doctor said the next spell would take me off. When 
I was released from prison the Confederacy had about gone to 
pieces. It was all over — the chapters read and the story told. 
I have loft out many incidents and names for want of a better 
memory and better opportunities. This all happened forty years 



—26— 

ago, and I can only state everything according to the best of my 
recollection and I have no further explanation to make. But I 
hope this narrative is sufficient to show to the young men and 
women of our country and future generations what a horrible 
thing war is. As for the fate of Jolui Wilkes Booth, who killed 
President Lincoln, it was something that the Confederates were 
not implicated in. Bob Hollway told me that when General 
Lee surrendered he went to his home at Bowling Green, Va., on 
the Rappahanock river, about fifteen miles below Fredericks- 
burg. He had only been at home a few days when a tobacco 
barn was burned down one night about a mile and a half from 
him. The ne.Kt day he went over there and found nothing but a 
pile of ashes, which were surrounded by a pole fence, and in 
one corner of the fence was a pile of straw and leaves, and 
here he found an opera gless with the name of J. Wilkes Booth 
engraved on it. He took it home with him, and the news soon 
went to Washington and some officers came down and took 
it away from him. So that ought to settle the question. An- 
other incident just after the surrender. Hutch Berry tells me, 
that not being al)le to get back to Texas, John Duran and him- 
self started out on foot to make their way down into North 
Carolina, wliere they both had relatives. On the way they stop- 
ped near a place where there were some Federal soldiers camped. 
After some deliberation on the subject. Hutch went in at night 
and confiscated two good horses for John and himself to ride, 
and at daylight thei*e was a good wide space between them and 
where they found the horses. At the last reunion of Hood's Bri- 
gade at Marlin, Texas, June 27th, Hutch told me that John has 
never settled with him for that hoi-se. I noticed an* article in the 
Cincinnati Enq)t>rcr of recent date, from Mrs. Longstreet, in de- 
fense of General Longstreet 's conduct at Gettj^sburg. It is all 
honorable and right in the woman to try and defend the char- 
acter of her husband, who is now in his grave. I was in General 
Longstreet 's command for a long time, and was under him in 
the Battle of Gettysburg, but, as I can remember it now, it was 
a right busy time with me, going up that mountain, the Federal 
batteries shooting into the rock fence in front of us, rocks flying 
in everj^ direction, the air full of shot and shell, and men falling 
all around me. I had no time to look around and see what Gen- 
eral Longstreet or anyone else was doing, for I had all the busi- 
ness on hand that I could attend to, but my version of the mat- 
ter from what I could see and learn then and afterwards is very 
different from the opinion that seems to prevail among good 
people today. It may not be correct and I have no argument now 



—27— , "^ 

to make with anybody about it. As I have already stated, I was 
wounded at Chicamauga, sent to Richmond, and was there over 
five months, and Gen. Hood was in Richmond at the same time. 
I often saw him and talked with him, and on one occasion, I 
think it was in the month of January or February, 1864, at 
General Smith's house. We had been talking over the battles 
of the war, when Gettysburg was mentioned. Not thinking it 
prudent to ask him any direct question, I said to him that it 
was always a mystery to us that if we had those hills to charge, 
why we were held so long in that valley. He hesitated a moment, 
and said: "Well, that -was one place I went into with a great 
deal of reluctance, and T told General Lee that I could put my 
division in thei'e. and would if I was ordered to do so. and 
lose a lot of my men and accomplish nothing." This much T 
have a distinct recollection of, the balance of his talk was in 
a general way and I do not remember all he said, but T think 
he said that General Lee called a council of his officers to dis- 
cuss the situation. General A. P. Hill, who succeeded Gen- 
eral Jackson, proposed a general movement all along the line of 
all the infantry and aitillei'v. Genei-al Lee said we were too late 
by about twenty-four hours for such a movement as that. Gen- 
ecal Long.street then proposed a tlank movement. General Lee 
said that with that vast army in front of us we would not be 
able to protect our Avagon trains, so they separated without any 
settled plan of action, and General Lee, after reviewing every- 
ihing. decided to resume all responsibility himself: but that took 
time, and that accounted foi' the delay. Whether that is cor- 
rect or not, the most sensible view to take of the matter is that 
if General Longstreet was guilty of disobeying General Lee's 
orders, it is strange that a man of (Jeneral Lee's sense and 
ideas of discipline and good order nevei- noticed it and did not 
make any complaint and have General Longstreet removed long 
bePoi'e the battle of (lettysbui-g. to say nothing about what hap- 
pened then and afterwards. Pete Walton says that what Wf 
don't know about history in this world is more important than 
Mliat we know. But it may not apply in this case. As for the 
cause of the war, we all kiKtw that it was giving to the gen- 
eral government too much authority over the States without 
any regai'd for the interests or rights of the people of those 
States. Centralized power, or. in other words, an imperial form 
of government, contrary to the Constitution and system of laws 
handed down to us by our fore fathers, when this government 
Avas established, and now we have the vast accumulation of 
wealth in the hands of a few in<livi(luals at the cxpcMisc of the 



J 



—28— 

masses, and this, with the evil designs of politicians, the want of 
office, its emolnments and Inxuries, with the increase of poverty 
and crime, can result in nothing but riots, strikes, mobs and 
bloodshed and the final overthrow of the government. Common 
sense tells us this: the history of the rise and downfall of some 
of the leading nations of the world tells us this, but it is to be 
hoped that the people of our country, with all of its varied in- 
terests, will be able to understand this subject and overcome all 
these difficulties in a peaceable legitimate way, live under one 
flag and one sentiment, and enjoy the blessing of liberty, peace 
and prosperity, with just and equal rights to all and special priv- 
ileges to none, and the man from the State of Maine can walk 
up to the man from the State of Texas, shake hands, and say, 
"We are friends." 



TEN YEARS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Before we start out on our long journey of nearly eight thous- 
and miles, I want to say a few words by way of preface to the 
young men and women of our country and future generations, 
and if what I have to say is of any benefit to them I have accom- 
plished a good part of my mission. It is more or less natural in 
the whole human family to think that our lot is harder than any- 
body's, and that there is a better country somewhere else than 
where we are. And in order to gratify our curiosity and ambi- 
tion for pleasure and profit we must go there, if possible. There 
are some countries that offer inducements and advantages over 
others, of this there is no doubt, but j^ou will find more differ- 
ences in people than there is in countries, and if all the evils 
or misfortunes that befall the human family were collected to- 
gether and put in one pile, and then distributed equally between 
every man, woman and child in the world, we Avould soon find 
that we would be better off with the evils or misfortunes that 
naturally befall us than what we would inherit by such a distri- 
bution. And the same rule would apply in the distribution of 
wealth and the luxuries of this life. It would finally go back 
into its old channel. As some would say: "The money sharks 
get it all." But in reality it falls into the hands of those who 
are born with a better sense of financial and business methods. 
We start from New York on the United States mail steamer 
Advance, the 15th of July, 1888. Put in at NcM^port News on the 
coast of Virginia to take on the mail and some freight. 1'his is 
the last land we see in the United States, and for all we know 
the last that we may ever live to see again. The next port 
reached is the Island of St. Thomas, one of the Danish West 
India Islands, five days and nights out from New York : and like 
all the West India Islands, they are mountains in th ocean, and 
some of them devilish high ones at that. Now, you would be 
surprised to see the native women here pick up their baski^rs 
that will hold about a bushel, and the little time it takes them to 
put four or five hundred tons of coal atoard the ship at one 
cent a basketfull. We pass near the Island of Martinique. 
This is where they have so many volcanoes, and you see so nuu li 
said in the newspapers about it; it belongs to France. The 
steamer blows the whistle and the people waive their flags. Bvu 



30 



hMvh,- lio business, ue do not stop. The next port reached is the 
Island of Barbadoes, about twelve or fifteen miles square, and I 
suppose 200 000 people on it. It belonsfs to England, and is gar- 
risoned bv troops. The next port reached is Para, the mouth 
of' the Amazon, and the first port on the coast of Brazil, a 
eitv of something over 50,000 people, about eight degrees south 
of the equator, and we are now about 3500 miles from New York. 
The principle article of export here I think is India rubber, 
sugar rice, tobacco and fine timber. This is not the latitude 
for coffee nor cotton, as it is too near the equator. It would 
make fine, large trees, but the coffee beans would decay and 
fall before they matured, and the same way with cotton. Of 
course the cotton would not fall off like the coffee, but it would 
be a siiort staple stuff and only fit for mattresses, if anything. 
Now from this explanation you can form an idea whether cot- 
ton can be produced in a tropical country or not. Another 
peculiarity about Para, they always have a shower of ram about 
12 or 1 o'clock every day, and it's as regular as clockwork, and 
I don't think that anybody has ever been able to tell the causo 
of it When people here make an agreement to meet for any 
purpose, they always say before or after the shuva: shuva is the 
Portugese word for rain. So the days and nights are both coo. 
and pleasant; vou need a blanket over you at night, or you 
would not sleep very much. AVe lay here two days and nights 
about half a mile from shore. I see people going back and forth 
in small boats, but when I see the sharks coming up to the top 
of the water occasionally, I feel better aboard the ship, for 
they could turn one of them boats bottom side up if they wanted 
to ' They don't look very handsome; the head seems to be the 
largest part about them. I was talking to an American who said 
he had been three or four hundred miles up this river, and said 
that he had seen cane seventy-five feet high, that would hold one 
Quart of water in each joint, and the best water he ever drank. 
I have seen cane twenty-five and thirty feet high twenty-five 
hundred miles south of here. It might be of some interest to 
state that the only way you can tell when you arrive at the 
mouth of the Amazon is by the muddy water mixing with the 
ocean, for it is said to be about one hundred and twenty-five 
miies wide at the mouth. 

The next port reached is Mieanham, a city of about 50,000 
-oeople; not a very important point for trade, but is headquar- 
ters for the Catholic church. These people are all Catholics, 
and you con see the likeness of St. John everywhere you go, and 
a word from the priest is the law with most of them. The next 



X 



31 



port reached is Purnambuke, or Purnambuco, as we call it. The 
native pilot comes out to meet us, as they do at all ports. Sup- 
posed to be 100,000 people here. A natural rock wall surrounds 
most of the harbor, and the tide coming in and going out rolls 
over this wall and it can be heard a long ways off; the tide has 
just gone out, and I can see that the pilot in front of the cap- 
tain's bridge is very much excited. But fortunately one of the 
passengers understands his language, and says to the captain : 
The pilot says that you are drawing twenty-two feet of water, 
and the tide has just gone «ut, and if you don't stop this ship 
you will get on a sandbar and lose the ship and all the cargo. 
But if you will wait one hour until the tide comes in vou can 
then go into port in safety." "Oh, they ought to send some one 
out here that I can understand." ''But the pilot says that 
if you expect to do business with these people, you must learn 
the language. You might as well be deaf and dumb as to try to 
get along m this country without being able to speak and under- 
stand the Portugese or Spanish language." 

The next port reached is Bahia. ^This city is said to have a 
population of over 100,000. It's on a high hill, you might say 
a mountain, and it is impossible to see the city from the deck 
of the ship. It overlooks a bay that seems to be "large enough for 
all the ships in the world. We anchor out in the bay, and 
some of the natives come aboard to help discharge the 'cargo : 
and, as usual, the mate on the ship is a verv cross kind of n 
man. He says to one of them, "Roll that barrel around here " 
"No foz moll." "Moll the devil and Tom Walker, roll that 
barrel around here." No foz moll means, that don't make any 
difference, but as neither one understands the other, it's a stand- 
off. He then turns around to one of the Irish sailors and says 
Pat, take hold of the end of that rope. " " There 's no end to it 
sir; the end has been cut off." That's another stand-off. 

The next port reached is Rio de Janiero, the capital of Brazil 
and a city of 800,000 people. It is down under the hills on the 
bay; you can only see the top of these hills back of the city on 
a clear day, for they seem to reach nearly to the skies You 
would, be surprised to see the munber of steamships and sailing, 
vessels coming in and going out of these ports; and it seems 
that not one out of twenty-five carries the United States flag I 
find that we are a great people in our own estimation and the 
I rated States is a great country, as long as we are in the limits 
of It: but when we get out of it we are small fry, especially in 
the matter of trade and commerce. I find that Brazil, from the 
best information I can gather, with a population of not less than 



—32— 

20,000,000, sells the world over $200,000,000 worth of produce 
annually ; and the most of this vast trade goes to Europe, on ac- 
oount of restrictions in our trade regulations. 

The next port reached is Santos, the end of our voyage, and 
fibout 6000 miles from New York; the next is Paranagua, and 
the next St. Catherine. You will notice Brazil fronts on the 
Athmtic Ocean nearly 4000 miles and nearly three thousand 
back — about the same amount of territory as the United States 
— but will support more people, because it's a more productive 
country and a better climate. Much of its territory has never 
been explored by a white man. Santos is not a very large place, 
and I don't suppose ever wall be, on account of its unhealthy 
location. The population is about twenty or twenty-five thous- 
and. As to whether it ships more coffee than Rio, I dq not know ; 
but it will always be considered one of the leading coffee ports 
of the world, as well as other expoi't and import trade which is 
ti"il)utary to it. 

We start out from Santos to San Paulo, a distance of about 
sixty jniles from the coast, and it is said to have a population 
of 150,000 o)- 200.000, and about 3000 feet above the level of the 
sea. The first twelve or fifteen miles after leaving Santos is a 
k;\v, fiat country; then we commence to go up the mountains. 
Now, you would be surprised to see the cars go up these moun- 
tains at the rate of twenty miles an hour. We find stationary 
engines posted on the side of the railroad every three or four 
miles with wire cables attached, and in this way the ears are 
(Irawu np the mountains. But I suppose if one of these cables 
s;]inidd break we would go down this mountaip at the rate of 
a hundred miles an hour, until we jumped the track. Though 
in all my travels on I'ailroads in Brazil I don't think I ever heard 
of a serious accident. In our country, if a train runs off the 
track and kills and cripples fifty or a hundred people, the wreck 
iss cleared away, the dead are buried, and wounded sent to the 
hospitals, and it's published in the newspapers, and that's the 
end of it. But I understand that if such a thing should happen 
in Brazil, every official connected with the road would go to the 
penitentiary for life; and for this reason, I suppose, we never 
hear of a railroad accident. I find San Paulo to be an up-to 
date city, with all modern improvements; at least they seem to 
keep np with the tide better than most of the Latin race of 
people; and it seems to be the home of the wealthy and aristo- 
cratic element and as fine a dressed people as you see anj^vhere. 
Tn litis, as well as in other cities and towns of Brazil, you find 
soldiers as well as fioliccTnen ; and if a wagon or buggy runs 



— 3-6 — 



over anybody, you see a policeman on the street with liis club 
ready to knock the driver off his seat, and for this reason people 
are seldom hurt on the streets. In our country it is just the re- 
\'>rse; it's almost an everyday occurrence for some one to be 
hurt on the streets of our cities. Here the rights of the people 
generally seem to be as well protected as any other country, 
i find some Americans here, but less than any other nationality. 
1 find another thing that we are not prepared to believe, and 
that IS, less feeling of felloAvship among Americans you meet in a 
foreign country than any other class of people in the world. 

Our diplomatic and consular officers put in their time well and 
• Iraw their pay; but I have never yet heard of them doing much 
for their country or people, or asserting their rights or making 
any effort to improve our trade relations, which is so much 
needed. These appointments are generally made as a reward 
for campaign services or some kind of favoritism, without 
regard for their qualifications or knowledge of the language or 
the people. San Paulo is a junction of railroads and a distrib- 
uting point for all branches of trade. We go from San Paulo to 
Campinas, a city of about 35,000 people, and another junction 
of railroads, surrounded by hills, and not a very healthy loca- 
tion ; but like San Paula, tributary to many of the large coffee 
farms. We go from here to Santa Barbara. This is where the 
Americans settled soon after our Civil War. Most of them were 
from the southern States ; but not many of them are her^ now ; 
some of them went back to the United States, some died, and 
others after learning the language, moved to different parts of th^ 
country. There is good agricultural lands here and level enough 
to plow, and that attracted the Americans. But it is not a coffee 
country; the people turn their attention mostly to provision 
crops and stock, but better country for stock is found in other 
I)arts of Brazil than this. I was not here long before 1 noticed 
about thirty or forty people going along the road on foot, and 
seeming to be in a great hurry, carrying a dead body to a grave- 
yard on a stretcher. They take it by turns; that's the custom 
of this coimtry. If they live twenty-five miles from the cem- 
etery, they must go there, or to some place where the ground has 
been blessed by the priest. Then one or two days out of abnost 
every week is a saint's day; and they firmly believe that snakes 
will bite them or some serious accident will happen to them if 
they M-ork on these days. 

It is my purpose to give wu some idea of the customs an, I 
liabits of these people, their methods of doing everything, th.- 
re;iiities df life, nnd tho general appearance of the country, its 




—34— 

resources, climate and seasons. All from actual observation 
made in ten years and in a plain, simple manner, and instead 
of commenting on reports from newspaper correspondents and 
others, I will trj^ to add something to it ; or in other words, com- 
mence where they left off. This, you know, is a progressive 
world, and as the people of other countries make advances in 
the Avay of modern improvements, these people try to keep up 
with the tide: and it is well they may, for they have as much 
or more interest at stake from the simple fact that they have more 
to do and more undeveloped country than perhaps any other part 
of the \\orld, and it will finally be a country of vast resources 
which will interest all classes of people. 




We are now at Santa Barbara, and it's the month of Septem- 
ber, 1888. I can hear something that sounds like the whistle 
of a steamship, and it's a long ways off. I find that it is a na- 
tive cart — all wood, no iron about it — and Avill carry about 
3000 pounds. The yokes are light; they use small poles and 
rawhide instead of chains, as we do, and from six to eight yoke 
of oxen; the axle turns under the frame of the cart instead of 
the wheels, and it is the friction of the axle under the frame 
of the cart that makes the noise. We see the driver going alonj^j 
the road punching the oxen with a little pole that has a sharp 
nail in the end about an inch long when they don't go to suit 
him, he says, "Bum, Oh. de arbar." Well, de arbar is their 
curse word and means, "Oh, the devil." But an American 



—35— 

woman who has just arrived and don't understand their lan- 
guage, says she never saw so many oxen hitched to a wagon in 
all her life, and they call them all be arbar. Another Amer- 
ican woman, who thought she had picked up Portugese enough 
to get along, took her seat at the table of a hotel; she wanted 
a spoon to stir her coffee, and instead of calling for a kuyey, 
said she wanted a carvolly, or in other words, she wanted a 
horse to stir her coffee. Did you ever think of the disadvantage 
you labor under to be in a country where you don't understand 
enough of the language to ask for your dinner or a drink of 
water? If you never did, you ought to try it once; you will 
learn something. No difference how well you are educated in 
your own country, you are nothing here unless you can speak 
the language; and if you are over 50 years old, you will never 
learn to speak it or any other foreign language well. If you can 
speak Spanish, Italian or P^rench, you can learn Portugese, on 
account of its similarity. 

It is a notorious and well-established fact in the everyday 
walks of life, that where one man fails another, under similar 
circumstances, will succeed: and this fact was plainly demon- 
strated m two cases which I will refer to.. In the year 1865 
or 1866, Charles (Juntor came to this country from Montgomery, 
Ala., I understand, with more money than any other American^ 
anti from all accounts he was a good business man and a good 
tradei" in liis own country. But here it was a new deal to him ; 
he was too old to learn the language and the strange methods 
of doing everything. The result was he lost his money and died 
a pauper. While John Cole, a jolly old soul, and about 65 years 
old, came here from South Carolina. He was a farmer and a 
man that looked at everything in a plain, practicable and sen- 
sible kind of way, and nobody could get any money out of him 
until he had value received. He succeeded well and made 
money, but he never learned but one word of the Portugese lan- 
guage, and that was ' ' Star bum. ' ' Everything was ' ' Stai- bum ' ' 
with him. "Star bum" in our language means that is all right. 
He was a good-natured kind of a man, but a very profane man, 
or wicked man. Some of the natives rode up to his house one 
day and called him out, and said to him in Portugese, of course, 
that the dogs had run a deer through his cotton field and they 
wanted permission to follow the dogs on their horses. Of course 
he had no more ideea what they were talking about than the 
man in the moon, but he yelled out at the top of his voice, "Star 
bum. Senor! Star bum!" Well, they thought it was all right, 
so away they went on their horses through the cotton field' 




—36- 



knoeking the cotton off as they went. Now, what he said to them 
in Enolish wonld never do to repeat before a Sunday school 
class but as neither understood the other, it was another stand- 
off 'hc had one child, a girl, and left her in South Carohna. 
He had lost his wife. When the girl was old enough, she mar- 
ried and she and her husband went to Brazil to pay the old 
man a visit They had only been there about two weeks when 
she went to him one day and said, "Father, we want to go back 
to South Carolina; we don't like this country." He ripped out 
an oath and said all right. "I will give you $10,000 m gold 
if you will leave here and never come back." Well, that w^ 
"Star bum " for that was what they went after. The next 
year he sold out and went back to South Carolina, and only 
iived a short time, but he was nearly 90 years old. 
■ From Santa Barbara we go to Moggy Miram, Mooshe, as we 
would pronounce it, with a soft accent on the last syllable. ITns 
is another junction of the railroad. I don't know the popula- 
tion, but from appearances there must be 10,000 or 15,000 people 
here Only two men here who can understand one word of our 
language. It is a great coffee country and wealthy people living 
in and^'around the place. From here we go to Penha, or Penya, 
as we would pronounce it, the terminus of one of these railroads. 
Here I see the first troop of pack mules I ever saw. It is thcar 
principal means of transportation over this mountainous 
country, where they have no railroads. You see almost every 
day fifty to one hundred pack mules with 250 pounds of coffee 
to the mule, or the same amount of merchandise, going along the 
roads to and from market, or to the railroad stations, with 
some difficulty, on account of my not knowing how to talk, 1 
find one family of Americans here from the State of Mississippi. 
We go from here to Jackitinga in the province, or State, of 
Minas,''or Menus, as they pronounce it, and by accident on the 
road I find Dr. James Warren, who came to this country in 18G5 
from Nashville, Tenn. Think he said he was a surgeon in the 
Confederate army, and find him a very intelligent and social 
kind of a man. He met me at the door and I said to him th^it 
I was an American, just arrived. "Glad to see you, sir, come in. 
I suppose you don't understand the language." "No, sir, not 
enough to hardly ask for a drink of water." Well, I have been 
in this country so long and it is so seldom that I meet an Ameri- 
can, I can express myself better in Spanish or Portugese than 
I can in English." Now according to the custom among all 
classes of people here (in fact they look upon it as a mark of 
politeness), the gii'l comes in with a waiter and some coffee and 



cakes. You must drink coffee with them, light vour cio'arette 
or pipe and smoke; then if you don't know how to talk you 
soon feel like it is better to be alone than in such company ' We 
then talk a few minutes, his wife, comes in, he speaks to her and 
tells her that I can speak no Portugese. She makes a polite bow 
and walks out ; she is a native, and wealthy has a large coffee farm 
coffee mill, and sugar mill. They have four children, two sons 
and two daughters, all grown. Dinner is announced- we oo in 
and sit down. The doctor and I talk, and they occasiouallv ask 
him what we are talking about. They seem to be very mu^h 
niterested, but don't understand us. Dinner is over I bid the 
doctor good-bye and travel on to Jacktinga, and 'find some 
American friends from Texas. 




This !s nearly ;ill n ^iionntaiTion.s eoimtrv, more timber on the 
mountains than there is iu our valleys, and much of it is impos- 
s.l>!e to walk tlirtmgh. much less ride thi-ough, without a h-ek 
k.Ht... The laud is mostly red. or T<^rra de Rose, as they call it. 



If you find any open country you find more grass on one acre 
than you ever saw on ten in our country, and much of the tim- 
bered country the sun never shines on. No winter nor summer 
neither hot nor cold. Not frost enough to hardly check tht! 
growth f>f vegetation; the leaves on the trees green the whole 
year round. Drouths, snow and ice, and failures in crops is 
something that is unknown in many parts of Brazil. No muddy 
Avater; you never go five miles that you don't cross a beautiful 
clear, running stream of water; in fact, going from the 
United States to Brazil is like going out of one world into an- 
other. Nothing you see resembles anj'thing you ever saw be- 
fore. Now, to further illustrate, a ship is lying in the bay at 
Rio at night; the moon is shining bright, and one of the Irish 
sailors says to another: " Now, Mike, do you suppose this is 
the same moon we have in the old country?" "Oh, what in 
the devil are you talking about, man, it is a different moon 
altogether." Everything is different in this country. If I re- 
member correctly, Frank Carpenter said, in speaking of our 
people who traveled over Europe every year for profit and 
I)leasure, to say nothing of the vast amount of money they spend, 
that they could see more here in one day than they could in 
a month of Sundays in Europe. Well, I will just raise him a 
bean, and say a lifetime. I have often thought I would like 
to see some of our people here who think they have seen heavy 
timber, and see some parova trees and logs that I have seen 
lying on the ground here. I think they would give it up. And 
then there are the different kinds of flowers, fruits, animals, 
and birds that you see in the virgin forest, that you see in no 
other country, Parova is a hard, heavy wood; the natives use 
it for lumber in building houses, and it seems to me it would 
be the finest timber in the world for crossties for railroads, for 
it is said one of these logs will lie on the ground for fifty years 
and then be as sound as ever. 

From Jaekitinga we go to Sorocaba ; about 8000 or 10,000 peo- 
ple here; then to Boituva. This is not a coffee country; it is 
mostly stock and provision crops. I see cows here larger than 
our beef steers, and the largest hogs I ever saw in my life ; horses 
and mules about like ours. Sweet potatoes ; you can sit down on 
one end and roast the other in the Are. Did you ever see a lizard 
four feet long? I think I have seen them five feet long. I was 
talking with a .young man who came here from Alabama, and 
asked him if these lizards ever offered to fight. He said you 
oil gilt to step on their tail once; j^ou will find out then how they 
light. He went on to say that when these people cut down the 



—39- 



tiniber and burn it oft' to plant, that leaves their holes exposed, 
and the boys put the dogs after them and cut him oft" from his 
hole, and he backs himself up against a log, and if he ever hits 
the dog one lick with his tail, he not only makes the fur fly, but 
makes the blood come, and that is the last time that dog will ever 
bai-k at a lizard, nuich less run after him. It is great fun for 
th(^ boys, but it is rough on the dog. The natives eat these liz- 
ai'ds. 'Jlie meat is white and looks nice, and they say it is 
"Mouncha bum"; that is, very good. 

We stop at Boituva and make two crops of cotton. The first 
year we plant the seed, the next year we cut the stalks down, 
md ni filer more from the stump of the stalk than we did from 
^- '^ ^"^ •' miii^a more cotton with less labor than we do in 

our (-(Mitii..N, but the grade is not so good as American cotton. 
We sell it lo the factories at Sorocaba and Tatey at about 2 1-2 
cents per pound in the seed, and it is made up into the lower 
grades of goods, the seed seems to degenerate, the natives plant 
the seed eveiy three years. I suppose further south the climate 
is better adapted to it and will make a better grade of 
cotton, say in the State of Parana, Matagras, and Rio Grande 
de Sul. These people are making improvements in the culture 
of cotton as well as evoi-ything else. This is south of the equator, 
and the furthei- south you go the cooler it gets. The coolest 
weather we have is in the month of July, and the warmest 




This IS a Mongola where the Natives make F:-reinah a sub- 
stitute for bread— run by water power, trough on 
one end and Morter and Pessel at the other. 



—40- 



w«,tlw.- IS iu -lanuary. tj^e terminus of the 

We go fro„, ^XT^'°^^l^^C^ extended to Rio Naova, 
Sorocaba railroad, bnt '* .'»*\^'"f .,g'"^„t p^rts o£ the country, 
with other branches running '^"^J^'^fg^^ „, 10,000 and is 
B,„u,.ato seems .« have ^J^^^^^l^^^^^ ^,,, ,,' a function 

"/-inr ra^rafa^e^— „ - a ^^ 

;:: rs h?::l ^'^^^ rrcSL^orE fatrn^, as 

we go from Botueatu to San Jao d^^^^^^ „j the 

these people pronounce >t, and > '^ '^^^^ J^ „( coffee farms 

country I have never ^^TJXltZvT^^^oranc^. coffee con- 

I never had any idea "f « *^ ,*^f .^t the crop of Braz.l 
sumed m the wor d^ I untos^a ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^^ 

amounts to ahout »•"""'""""' ' ,. ' y^,. fi^e timber, raw 
this say $10 a sack, then add the India riAber n ^^^ 

sugar, rice, tobacco, guano,.*d hdes^yonl- ^.„ 

„,„.i, sells the -f ./;^^;„^" ™L that we pay these 

L',et anything f^^^^^^^^ American goods here 
seems to me *»» I could have ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^.^ ^ 

in ten years, hot Euiope conn factories. Italy 

„s well as the banking tn-nes^ 'Yj;«f ^^ is the situation 
furnishes a large amount of the ^o-^- ^ Washington takes 
,nd will continue to be until ^^"^^^Congiess at Wa . ^^^^^ 

.some step to negotiate "-^^^ ^^^'tf "..port and import 
eountries, with such a ™ f"" 'f'™ t„:es in the matter of 
.tnties as will compete with other countries m rii 

*r ;:d commerce. But -- ^^'Ld T ChTnete waif::: 

"'^ tlHurunri w"dlT;" :<lay for anything, 

^:Cetavtrytig we 7. jh. w^.r rdu^tH^ 

:;;, you can nearly a'™/^ ''^mlly aTe^Tov d d f „ - ,1, 

'■"'^' t"o"t-r t:::-! i^ ~.^^e ZrZy to make a man 
way out ot the P"'""; "f^^ ■. j„,io„.ship for his eoimtryman, 
show van interest or feeling oi tellowsn p 
is to t\ke his salary or money away fiom him, ana 



—41— 

(o waul, or inoderate cireiniistances ; that will make him sociable 
when everything else fails, or at least he will entertain very 
different views. I have paid here 20 cents a yard for cotton 
goods that sell on the New York market for 5 cents ; $2.50 for a 
fifty-pound sack of flour, and $3 for Collins' axes with handles. 
One of our two-horse wagons, I think, sells here for $135, and 
one of our double-turning plows with trace chains and single- 
trees for $25, and hundreds of other things I could mention. 
But still this trade is not worth our attention. In this country 
the government issues the money direct to the people. In our 
country the banks issue the money and the government en- 
dorses the banks and they are called national banks. These 
people know but little about the arts of statecraft or politics, 
as we understand it. Like all the latin races, their issues, if 
they have any, are about men instead of principles. They go 
through all the formalities of elections, but the officials put out 
the candidates. The Delegarda is the judge, sheriff, and the 
district clerk. They have about the same road laws as we have. 
When a man dies, 18 per cent of his property goes to the gov- 
ernment, and when real estate is sold the govenrment gets 6 
per cent of the purchase money; so there are no general tax 
laws like ours. You seldom see the sheriff, tax collector, or can- 
didates for office. The price of land depends upon the locality 
and convenience to market, from 40 cents to $2 an acre. The 
quantity is about the same all over the couatr3^ Coffee is 
checked oft* twenty feet each way, 325 trees to the acre, and 
after it is five years old is valued at 50 cents a tree until it is 
50 3^ears old. Though it is considered a net income to the 
owner, all this time of say, one year with another, 30 cents or 35 
cents a tree. The people have pastures for their cattle and 
horses and pens for their hogs, so it is not necessary to have fen- 
ces around their farms as we do. 

We will now change the subject a little; I want to tell you 
something about the custom and habits of these people. I have 
already said something about their Saints' days. The 25th of 
June with them is like the 25th of December with us; it is St. 
John's day. Sunday is like a Saint's day with them. Then they 
have their festivals. Among the Carboca, or lov;er class, you will 
see the men rig up their pack saddles with two large baskets on 
each side; this they call a colgary. They put the children in 
these baskets. You see the women going along i' -'»ad on foot 
before the pack horses, and the men on a hor 
they are going to a festival. The wealthy peoplf 



* yr 



<-/*f 



-42- 



^ 



get togethei' in the towns and cities, run horse races, play cards, 
fight chickens, send np skyrockets, and yell at the top of their 
voices, "Viva Viva visumbora de arbar"; they run the devil 
out of the country so the corn and beans will come up and the 
coffee will make more. They drink "pinga" at these festivals, 
but they are not much on the fight like our people. Then they 
uve a very polite ; if they meet you forty times in a day, they 
speak to you, and M'he'n they go to leave you they tell you, "Bum 
tellogger," or good-bye. 

I will now tell you how^ these people plant coffee as well as 




Gathering Coffee 
corn and other provision crops. If a man wants to cut down 
fifteen or twenty acres of timber to plant, he will go around and 
invite all his neighbors to a dinner and dance at night, festival. 
He will get two or thj-ee ji^^'s of "]unga," or rum, some floui-,' 
meat, sugar and rice and will pay them say, one milrey each 
in money. They appoint a day, and they all come in with thei." 
forshes and axes, fifty or a hundred of them, if necessary, and 
cut the timber down. This is in the month of June or July, tha 
dry season of the year, and by September or October, the plant- 
ing season, it's all dry and ready to burn, and such a fire as it 
makes, with the popping of the cane, I do not think any of our 
people have" ever seen, unless it was a large city on fire. Then 
it takes five or six days for the ground to cool off. Then they 
go into it with their corn and pumpkin seed and earvidarys 
and punch holes in the groutul and plant: this is all they do t'j 
it, and they make more eorn on one acre of ground without hoe- 
ing or ]|)lowiMf than I ever saw in our country. Then after 
*^' ' 'lanted, if they want to plant coffe*^ on the land. 

rx o.".Mi,-.,i off f';)i'(d'ully with a chain twenty I'eet 



each way, and put up a stake. They dig a hole with a grubbi.v^ 
hoe at these stakes about ten inches deep. Next the "fato," te 
overseer, on the place comes along and drops a few coffee beant 
in these holes and rakes a little dirt on them, and lays som< 
sticks over the top of the holes for shade ; then it is four or five 
months before the coffee comes up, and until it begins to make 
limbs it looks like cotton. In two years they are waist high; 
in three years you see a little coffee on them, but not enough 
to pay until they are five years old. all this time corn, beans and 
other provision crops are planted in the coffee land by the hands 
who treat the coffee. They commence to gather coffee in June 
or Jul3% and finish in December or January, and they pay from 
10 to 15 cents a bushel for gathering. They take a brush, broom, 
or rake and clean off the ground under the trees and strip the 
coffee off on the ground, and by the use of iron sifters they 
get the rocks and dirt out of the coffee, put it in a pile at the 
end of the row, and when they have forty or fifty bushels the 
cart comes along, measures up the coffee and gives them a ticket. 
Saturday evening the bell taps and the boss counts their ticket.s 
and gives them their money, less what they are due the boss for 
provisions. Sunday they go to town, play cards, run horse races, 
get drunk, or do anything they want to do. Gathering coffee 
is not as hard work as gathering cotton. The natives often plant 
tobacco in the young coffee fields, and here see the largest to- 
bacco leaves you see anywhere in the world. Coffee generally 
blooms out in December, and the blooms and leaves resemble 
a honeysuckle more than anything I can think of. It is a beaU' 
tiful sight to see 100,000 coffee trees in full bloom ; then if they 
have three days without a hard rain and wind this will .give 
the bloom ample time to set on, and they get a full crop, other- 
wise the crop is short. Coffee generally makes a full crop one 
year and a half a crop the next. The cause of this I do not know, 
and don 't suppose anyone else does. If the boss comes along and 
finds an orange tree or lemon, or sweet potato vines in his coffee, 
he makes the hands chop them down — don't want them in his 
coffee. You often see an orange or lemon tree loaded with nice 
fruit dumped into the creek. The nicest fruit you find iu the 
virgin forest is the "jackatacarba. " It is black and slick and 
about the size of a hen egg, and sticks to the limb or body of the 
tree until it is ripe. Then there is the "almasha" and bananas, 
the largest you ever saw, and ' ' buekiehuse, " or pineapples, as we 
call them. 

r never»will forget the night of the 13th of September, 1892. 



% 



I 



__44- - 

•azil. They liad what they call a "shiiva de pedro"; we call 

hail storm, but I doii 't suppose the oldest citizen ever saw 

thing like it. Of course, the people were very much 'excited, 

d some of them thought the end of time had come. The next 

)rning we could see the coffee was knocked off the trees and 

>lled in piles and some of it washed into the creeks and 

)ranches. In some places the yards were full of coffee, and I 

have no doubt there were coffee . farms that lost $15,000 or 

$20,000 Avorth of coffee in twenty minutes. And the large trees 

lying across the roads in the timber made them impassible for 

for some time. We coidd see signs of it in the coffee fields for 

twelve months. 




I will tell you what a "bish" is. It is an insect that looks more 
like a flea than anything I can think of; he gets under your toe 
nails or finger nails and lays an egg, and makes him a sack and 
hatches out some little "bishes. " The next day if you don't 
take the point of 5^)ur knife and ]uek him out he will give you 
trouble. To avoid all this you must sweep out your house reg- 
ularly and bathe your feet in warm water every night. If you 
don't know what a "baranah" is, you would not be in Brazil 
long before you would find out. A green fly will light on you 
and get under your clothing and lay an egg on your arm, or some 
part of the bod}-, and in a few days you feel something that 
stings like ;in ant, and they get to be troublesome, and I have 
seen Americans who had been in the country t\venty years and 
nevei' knew how to get rid of them. I had been in the country 
about four years Ayhen I found one on my arm tluit Avas giving 
me a ii'real deal of trouble. I rolled up my sliirt sleeve and one 



7 



—45— 

of the natives looked at it and said "sparumpoke," or "holc^; 
on. ' ' He went into the honse and took his pipe and ran a straw^ 
through the stem and came out with a live coal of fire and some' 
amber out of the pipe stem. He rubbed a little amber on it 
and dried it with his coal of fire, and two applications made 
him deathly sick. He took hold of my arm and squeezed it out, 
and it was a little hairy worm with a larg-e head. They get on 
the cattle and dogs, but horses and mules the hide is too tough 
for them. 

Those people are very liberal in the way of credit, but as a rule 
all classes have to pay their de])ts. In our Coventry it is a hard 
matter to collect a debt from a man who owns no property sub- 
ject to execution under the laws. It is different here. If a man 
becomes dissatisfied where he is at woi'k and goes to some other 
eoft'ee farmer, the boss always asks hmi how much he owes at the 
other place. He tells him and says all right. He writes a note 
to the boss on the other place to make out his account and send 
it to him and he will pay it, as he has employed one of his hands. 
While there is no law -to compel them to do this way, custom 
makes it right, and I suppose it will always be so in this country. 
Passports are not essential in entering Brazil, but it always 
cost you a little to leave the country. As for the investment of 
(';!l)ital. I don't suppose that there is a country in the world, or 
''ver will be, that offers more inducements and a better prospect 
for profit. There are no labor troubles, or labor organizations, 
and I don't suppose ever will be. 

As for what trade or profession has the best chance of suc- 
cess in a country like that, one of our lawyers would have no 
show without a thorough knowledge of the language and laws, 
and for one of our doctors to get a certificate to practice med- 
icine, that is a difficult matter on account of the examinations 
he vvould have to stand: but if he is a dentist and understand;! 
his profession, that will always be a good business here, for the 
l)rices they charge for such work he can afford to get some one 
to talk for him until he can understand what "Entra star 
pronta" means, or, come in and take a seat in the chair, all 
ready, and it don't take long to learn that. 

Our missionaries seem to have a good time; they live well and 
have nothing much to do. The natives are all Catholics and say 
they are needed more in their own country than here, but I am 
not very well posted about that ^KT^mess. 

This i-^ a healthy country, if you pay strict attention to the 
rules of health you will live to a good old age. I have known 



—46— 

leople to come here with consumption and get well, but with a 
ease of rheumatism it is just the reverse. I understand an Eng- 
lishman about 75 years old came here; he was a telegraph ope- 
rator and kncM' nothing else, and as English money runs all the 
railroads, factories and banks, he thought, of course, he would 
have no trouble in finding employment as soon as he landed, 
The idea never occurred to him that he would have to telegraph 
' in Portugese, but they gave him a job keeping gate at some 
' railroad .station. If he had been an American he would have 
been compelled to go on some coffee farm to gathre and hoe coffee 
or go back to England, if he could get back. 

W start back to the United States on the 26th day of May, 
1898, and leave Kio on the steamer "Galileo" the 4th of June. 
The war is going on with Spain. This is an English ship ; Amer- 
ican ships are all laid up, put in at Bahia for coffee and other 
freight. The next port reached in Purnambuke. We are draw- 
ing about twenty-five feet of water, too much to go into the har^ 
bor. We lay outside and the barges come out. The shij) had 
about 25,000 sacks of coffee aboard, besides other freight. They 
lay planks down on this coffeee and roll mahogany logs, guano, 
hi(les and other freight down on them. We put in at the Island 
of St Lucia for coal, and land in New York the 23rd of June, 
1898, just nineteen days from Rio. 

I will now say for the satisfaction of all who may want tc 
know something about the expense of such a trip as this, that we 
never get too old to learn. When I went to Brazil I paid .^435 
in gold from New York to Santos for myself, wife, and son about 
9 years old, on an American ship, saloon, or first-class passage. 
Came back on an English ship, second-class, and from Rio to 
New York I paid $185 in gold, and I will say that I can see but 
, very little difference between second-class fare on an English ship 
I and first-class on an American ship, but to learn all this we must 
do like I did: go and try it. I think you will find that the $300 
saved will be of some benefit to you some time. The English 
people have more system and order on. their ships than our 
people do. Second-class fare on an American ship is like a pen. 

I understand that our people are making some improvements 
in this branch of business. I hope they are, for there is great 
room foi- it. June or July is the proper time to make such a 
trip ; then you are less exposed to storms on the ocean or epidem- 
ics on the coast of South America. If I was going to make the 
trip again, with my experience, instead of waiting in a hotel in 
New York three weeks, as I did, for the regular mail steamer for 



( 



—47— 

Rio, I would take the first good ship from New York to South- 
ampton or Liverpool, second-class, unless I had money to throw 
at birds, and from there to Rio. As for your money, United 
States currency is good at a discount, or you can put your gold 
into a belt and put around you, but either way you run the risk 
of being robbed on the road, or lose your money by some ac- 
cident. Then you can get exchange in New York on Liverpool 
or London, which is good in South America, but remember that 
unless you have the original and duplicate, the first and the 
second, when you present it to the banks at Rio or St Paulo, they 
will ask you where the second is. You tell them the second is in 
the hands of the bank at New York. They will say, how do we 
know but that the second has been presented and paid; we don't 
want it. Present the first and second and we will pay it. Every- 
thing is done on the old English banking system, and unless you 
have your exchange in that kind of shape, it is worthless in 
»:50uth America. I have no advise to offer any of our people 
to go to a foreign country, nor do I ever expect to, for that is 
a serious matter, but if I was young and had my life to live 
over and had the means to do something on my own account 
and knowing the country and methods of doing everything as 
I do, and was disposed to try my fortune in a new country, I 
Avoiild not hesitate to go to Brazil. It is not expected that this 
information will be interesting to old people who have fought 
the battle of life and are contented with their surroundings, 
and sensible of the fact that we get nothing out of this world 
except what we eat, drink and wear. It is intended for j'oung 
people and future generations who are in a condition and dis- 
posed to try their fortunes in a new country. I have given then, 
the facts, the advantages as well as the objections, and the diffi- 
culties they would have to contend with, and it is for them to 
determine whether or not they would better their condition in 
life by such a move. 

THE END 

W. G. DAVIS 

REAL ESTATE AND LAND AGENT 
OFFICE DRISKILL HOTEL 

p. O. BOX 621 AUSTIN, TEXAS. 




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JUL 8 190- 



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